- Click image
for Page 1
- Smyth and
the Unicorn - Page 2
At the
risk of presenting logic along the lines that "a
lemon is a yellow fruit and so, because bananas are
yellow and are also fruit, they must be lemons"
- these two pages were designed to explore the heraldic
device of the unicorn which appears so significantly in a
variety of arms granted to sundry Smyths over the
centuries - and to consider also the ancestry associated
with the unicorn emblem.
The
Unicorn, the Bible and ancient ancestral connections ...
The anecdotal placing of
the crown over the unicorn helm of 'Smyth of Acre' is
significant in that it shows that the unicorn was already
a device used - and, presumably, used by right - by this
ancestor of the Smyth family. The adopted motto, coming
from a biblical reference, is equally significant for
reasons that will be seen below. It is also interesting
to observe that some Smyth/Smith arms contain the head of
a bull in place of a unicorn. Note these words: "His glory is like a
firstborn bull, and his horns [weapons] are like the
horns of a wild ox"
(Deuteronomy 33:17).
It should be borne in mind
also that, historically, the unicorn was not always
depicted as being akin to a horse, as shown in most
illustrations. In early representations it had the head
of a goat and was cloven hoofed. Its tail was long and
slender. It was seen as posessing mythical powers -
specific details of which are beyond the scope of this
article - but throughout history, the unicorn, as a
device in heraldry, has been proudly carried by just a
few members of a small number of families. The unicorn itself was (and still
is) a significant beast for many peoples in many lands
but, through the development of heraldry it came to be
recognised as a device signifying
extreme courage, virtue and strength. For members of certain Smith/e
- Smyth/e families, and for those others who bear
elements of the unicorn in their arms, its origins can be
traced back through several thousand years to biblical
times via the supposed great uncle of Jesus of Nazareth.
 The unicorn was a possible
interpretation of the Oryx - either way, it was the
emblem of Ephraim
whilst the lion was the symbol of Judah.
Both now support the British royal coat of arms.
Additionally, and perhaps more pertinently, an early
ancestor of King Henry (VII) Tudor of
England - (click on rose image) - and therefore
ancestor to many persons treated on this site - is said
to have been Caradoc - known also as Caractacus
who was a King of the Welsh Silures during the early
years of the Christian era. His son, Cyllin,
and his daughter, Eigen, are both ranked
among the British saints. Eigen, married a British
chieftain and another daughter, Gwladys,
was adopted by the Roman Emperor Claudius
in exchange for his own daughter, being given in marriage
to Caradoc in the hope of ending hostilities between
Britain and Rome. Gwladys changed her name to Claudia
when she married a Roman patrician by the name of Aulus
Rufus Pudens Pudentius.
Caradoc (Caractacus) was,
in turn, connected (as many believe and several have
tried to show) to Joseph of Aramathea
who was - according to the Talmud - the youngest brother
of the father of Mary whose son was Jesus
of Nazereth, born in Bethlehem.
Joseph
of Aramathea
Joseph of Aramathea was
one of the disciples of - and thus also a great uncle to
- Jesus and it is known that he claimed the body of his
great nephew after the crucifixion and then placed it in
an empty portion of his family tomb. Joseph's daughter, Anna,
is reputed to have married an English king - quite
possibly Caractacus, who was later married to a daughter
of the Emperor Claudius. The families Royal of Britain,
it would appear, are therefore "many times over
the descendants of Solomon and Nathan". For a
comprehensive discussion concerning these historical,
religious and genealogical aspects - as well as other
matters of biblical descent, follow the link to this website.
As with all
such texts, it looks at the world through one
particular religious window and the philosophies
expressed are not necessarily the views of this
writer. However, the background material is well
documented and there is much of interest that is
relevant to the themes touched on here.
The town of Aramathea
is more often spelled Arimathea, being
called Arimathaim in the Septuagint and Amartha by the
historian, Josephus. It stood where present day Ramallah
now stands, just a short (and troubled) distance to the
north of Jerusalem. Joseph was a nobleman and a wealthy
merchant. He had extensive business interests in Britain
- notably in the tin and copper trade. St. Jerome writes
that Joseph's official title was 'Nobilis Decurio',
essentially a minister of mines for the Roman Empire,
with direct access to Pontius Pilate himself.
The tin and copper trade
in Britain had been monopolised by the Phoenicians who
originally came from that same area in the Middle East.
They traded and settled in Britain some three thousand
years ago, moving through Tyre, which was the port and
capital of Phoenicia or Asher or Israel. The Phoenicians
were attracted to the "Tin Isles" - the
Britannic Isles - because of the valuable and extensive
deposits found there, deposits not recorded anywhere else
in the known world of the time. As a result, the trade
was very highly prized. Tin, when mixed with copper,
becomes the metal, bronze, a process that had given its
name to a specific era in the development of humankind -
the "Bronze Age".
Joseph of Aramathea was an
inheritor of these early exploitations. He lived in
Britain for varying periods in his professional capacity.
However, in later years, he had cause to settle there
permanently and chart the course of history. In the
unrest that followed the crucifixion, it would not have
been a step into the unknown for Joseph, his family,
associates and some of the other disciples, to flee to a
familiar land where he already had 'friends in high
places' - Britain; which is what seems to have happened,
landing first in France and then crossing to Britain,
taking with him a number of possessions - artefacts of
the era. The legends of the Holy Grail (the drinking
vessel used at 'the last supper' of Jesus and the
disciples) as originally being hidden in Britain are thus
well founded! He was already well acquainted with the
British kings - Beli, Lud, Llyr (King Lear) and
Arviragus. They gave him and his companions twelve 160
acre parcels of land and he became the traditional
founder of the Christian settlement of Glastonbury, in
Somerset. He died at Glastonbury on July 27th, 82 CE, and
- according to Cressy, the Benedictine Monk and
historian - on his tombstone was written, in Latin, "After
I had buried the Christ, I came to the Isles of the West;
I taught; I entered into my rest."
Connection
with these early beginnings and the generations that
followed would, no doubt, account for so many Smith/e -
Smyth/es being associated with the church in all its
various adherencies!
The
Lion and the Unicorn
| Many
people are familiar with these verses attached to
"The Lion and the Unicorn" - here
recited as an inocuous enough English nursery
rhyme for children, depicting the political
struggles of the realm symbolised by the lion and
the unicorn. The Lion and the Unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The Lion beat the Unicorn
All about the town.
Some gave
them white bread
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
And drummed them out of town!
|
What
many people may not be aware of is that the
mythical origin of the struggle between them goes
back even further - as far back as the mythology
of Egypt where Sut struggled for
supremacy with Osiris/Horus.
Another version of the same rhyme reads as: The Lion and the
Unicorn
Were fighting for a farthing,
The Lion beat the Unicorn
Up and down the garden!
The Lion
and the Unicorn
Were fighting for a crown,
The Lion beat the Unicorn
Up and down the town!
|
The unicorn
was a type of Sut - the Lion, Osiris or Horus.
The crown - and the prize of the contest - was
light and ownership of that clear, bright disc of
the moon in the sky. The farthing represents a
fourth part and they fought over a fourth part (a
quarter) of the moon, which equates to the seven
days during which darkness was put to flight.
This Egyptian imagery and the arms of England
illustrate the same struggle.
 The "Old
Damascus" Rose
The 'Old Damascus Rose' - the
red rose which is elemental to the Tudor
Rose, is also called '
The Apothecary's Rose' and was brought back to
Europe by the Knights Templars. It was first adopted as an
emblem in England by Edmund, First Earl
of Lancaster. and it was from the
House of Lancaster - in Lancashire a county that
also appears to have been the stronghold of early
armigerous Smith/e - Smyth/es - that Henry VII
(Tudor) descended.
'The red Apothecary's Rose was first
cultivated in ancient
Persia. Actually, all true red roses originated
in China but were traded and then hybridized in
Persia. Persian legend maintains that the red
colour of the 'Old Damascus Rose' came about
because a nightingale loved the sweet smelling
White Damask Rose (Rosa alba) so much that it
grasped it too tightly one day and the sharp
thorns pierced the bird's breast; its blood
turned the white rose red and a new rose was
born.
The fragrant petals of this red rose were
dried and rolled into beads then strung into what
became known as a 'rosary' and from this, it is
said, comes the name of the ecclesiastical
'Rosary'. Today, it is one of the oldest roses to
survive in cultivation. Its petals retain their
fragrance when dried and even when powdered and
thus it gave rise to a once important industry in
preserves and confections. It was also cultivated
for its medicinal values - hence one of its names
- and one of its 'non
prescription' uses by the 16th century was to use
its dried petals, soaked in wine, to be taken as
a cure for hangovers - although this idea was not
new. The Romans had used roses for the same
common affliction some 1200 years before!
"One story," - writes American rose
enthusiast, Mark Whitelaw, in an article about
this rose - "says that the rose was returned to
King Louis VII after the Second Crusade in Syria.
Since England, in those days, also included
Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine, the rose made
its way to King Henry II. Henry had married
Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, but he also had a
mistress named Jane Clifford, later renamed
(according to legend) 'The Fair Rosamond'. Queen
Eleanor got wind of this affair, concocted a
poison to give her husband’s mistress and
disguised the deadly potion with the oil of the
Apothecary’s Rose and R. alba. After
Rosamond’s death, so the legend goes, a new
rose sprouted outside the castle - one of both
red and white stripes - called 'Rosa mundi'. To
this day, R. mundi, a genetic “sport”
of the Apothecary’s Rose, will sometimes
revert to its original heritage."
Don't we all? I shall away
immediately and marinade some rose petals in
wine; but the question is - which? White or red?
Site
Note
Schiller, Friedrich von,
(1759-1805), German Poet: (ennobled in the Holy
Roman Empire 1802).
Arms: Party per fess Or and Azure, in chief a demi-Unicorn
Argent, and in base a fess of the first.
Crest: On a Laurel Wreath proper, a coronet Or,
out of which a demi-Unicorn as
in the arms.
Mantling: Azure and Or.
Whilst a number of German
families - several of them cousins to English
families of the era - have used the unicorn
device in their arms, a question needs to be
asked: Is it significant that the following event
took place whilst Henry James Drew Smythe
(Jimmy) was in Bavaria as a member of the
International Commission for the Repatriation of
Prisoners of War, immediately after the close of
hostilities of World War 1?
Writing from Bavaria on January
7th 1919, Jimmy stated in a letter to his wife, Enid
(Cloutman) who was nursing at a
hospital in Boulogne, as follows:- "On Sunday we did
nothing special but went to the American Church
to Service in the morning and took Communion
there. In the afternoon we slept (methinks) and
at 5o'clock we went to call on the Baroness
Gleichen who had asked Dr. Schueeli if he would
ask me to have tea with her. He
also came soon after we had arrived. Her husband,
Baron Gleichen, is a writer of socialistic ideas
but moderate in his views and he has spoken out
all through the war against Germany's doings and
even starting the war. She is
the great-niece of Schiller, the great German
poet and she has all sorts of
his pictures, works and furniture and a very fine
painting of him. She has also some other old
paintings and etchings, one by Goethe and a
lot of real Wedgwood china. She
spoke English very well and was altogether very
interesting and the things in her house were even
more so. She asked if she might present the
Colonel and I with one of her husband's books
each and we accepted and she is to send them to
our hotel ... "
Two questions (lemons and
bananas again) 1. Why would
Baroness Gleichen ask specifically to meet him
unless perhaps she knew of him via some pre-war
family or other connection? Connected via the
unicorn, perhaps? And 2. Is the
interest in Wedgwood china significant? Living
memory currently recalls that Jimmy and Enid
posessed a very fine Wedgwood collection and that
Josiah as a first name appears somewhere in
Smyth/e family lineage ...
For the full story of this
period in Bavaria, when Jimmy was on the
International Commission for the Repatriation of
Prisoners of War, see the Dearest Blue
Eyes zone
on this site. He wrote
several letters to Enid. She was at the Hotel
Crystal, Boulogne, serving as a V.A.D. They had
been married in November 1914, soon after the
outbreak of World War 1 and saw each other only
on infrequent leave opportunities. This is the portrait of
a relationship as much as an observation, with
anecdotes, contained within a complete personal
report of a few weeks of his work and travels in
Germany and Austria less
than two months after the Armistice that ended
The Great War.
 I am still not sure
whether or not bananas are lemons - but it has
been fascinating trying to find out. Perhaps
others with greater insight or historical
knowledge may care to contribute to the unicorn
debate in relation to the Smyth ancestry and/or
unicorn heraldry. As they say, "corrections and
information welcome"!
Above all, be it
known that the unicorn is a survivor! The Royal
Burgh of Sterling in Scotland has the statue of a
unicorn mounted high up on a column, holding the
Royal Coat of Arms on a shield. Indeed, Stirling
always had a close association with the royal
household of Scotland because of the castle.
Like so many towns
throughout Britain, there was a market cross in
or near the market place where people came to
trade and strike bargains or to sign important
contracts in the days before 'municipal
facilities'. However, during the 1700s,
Sterling's cross was removed from Broad Street
and it was not replaced until 1891. By this date,
the unicorn was all that remained of the original
features of the "Mercat Cross". But
remain it did!
dds.01.03
|
|
